April 12, 2011
My Rhodesian Ridgeback was injured and is now showing aggression when people come to our house. Do you have any advice?
Full Question:
Hi,I'm from Bogot?, Colombia. I have a 6 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback. We hired a dog trainer for him 2 months ago, it was working great. But 5 weeks ago as the trainer was walking back to our house with my dog and another puppy, a Rottweiler which was off leash jumped towards him. The trainer released the leashes, my dog was scared and ran like crazy... At the end, he was hit by a car... He was seriously injured: his right leg was broken in three pieces (he required surgery), his lungs where slightly damaged by the hit, so his thorax were filled with air and he trouble breathing. He was badly hurt, but i'm just happy he is alive. He wasn't allowed to move for a month, he had to be kept in his dog crate for all this time. In this time he began turning aggressive towards strangers that came into our house, we thought it was because he was in pain and felt vulnerable. He is now almost completely recovered (well he isn't in pain anymore), and he is still showing aggression when people come into our house... he barks all the time, when he hears someone is approaching to our door. When we are outside walking he is really calmed and doesn't pay attention to strangers! He is also really nice to other dogs. I realized today that he is only aggressive towards men. Can I expect this behavior to go away with time when he gets use to strangers in our house again? Do you have any advise for this?
Thanks a lot!!!
Rodrigo
Ed's Answer:
I am not a fan of sending a dog away with a trainer. This is just another reason why.
It sounds like fear aggression. Hard to say without seeing the dog. The solution to ALL behavioral problems begins with obedience training.
You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog. Your dog must go through training steps before it can be considered fully trained.
You will read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes. No professional dog trainer would ever take his dog to an obedience class with 15 or 20 untrained dogs and try and train it there. It is crazy. The dogs cannot concentrate with the distractions.
I think if you read the testimonials on my DVD you will see that my customers feel the same way.
If you make the decision to learn to train - get a prong collar. You can read about it on my web site. There is an article I wrote (with a number of excellent photos) on how to fit a prong collar, you can also read about the different types of prongs.
Dogs with fear aggression react well to training.
With this said ALL and EVERY incident of unwarranted aggression require a correction with a prong collar. You can read about it on my web site.
It sounds like fear aggression. Hard to say without seeing the dog. The solution to ALL behavioral problems begins with obedience training.
You will probably find that you have not had the full picture on the steps of training a dog. Your dog must go through training steps before it can be considered fully trained.
You will read why I am not a fan of taking an untrained dog to obedience classes. No professional dog trainer would ever take his dog to an obedience class with 15 or 20 untrained dogs and try and train it there. It is crazy. The dogs cannot concentrate with the distractions.
I think if you read the testimonials on my DVD you will see that my customers feel the same way.
If you make the decision to learn to train - get a prong collar. You can read about it on my web site. There is an article I wrote (with a number of excellent photos) on how to fit a prong collar, you can also read about the different types of prongs.
Dogs with fear aggression react well to training.
With this said ALL and EVERY incident of unwarranted aggression require a correction with a prong collar. You can read about it on my web site.
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